


compass

by hyacinths



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: M/M, another reunion fic im sorry, i dont rlly like this but here it is anyway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-02
Updated: 2016-08-02
Packaged: 2018-07-28 22:08:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7658563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hyacinths/pseuds/hyacinths
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You can't find someone who doesn't want to be found."</p>
            </blockquote>





	compass

 

 

 

~

The coffee in this cafe is too bitter, the cakes too sweet. The only thing that really holds is the familiar presence in front of him. The same young face, curly blonde locks still held on a pigtail that masks her actual age. Bisky sat in front of Gon, wearing the same air of motherly concern whenever Gon started telling stories.

"Just like that?" Bisky asks with a string of worry in her voice. 

"Well, yeah. It's been five years, Bisky." Gon answers, poking the cheesecake with a fork. 

"I know, but." A sigh escapes Bisky's lips. "You two were inseparable."

Gon huffs. "We were." He shrugs, feeling indifference and just a little bit lost. "You can't find someone who doesn't want to be found."

It hurts to say it. It hurts to even think about it. 

Bisky lowers her eyes, a smile tugs at her lips, the smile she always did when she thinks no one is looking. He's seen it maybe three times. First when Killua fainted from training too much, second when they celebrated in finishing Greed Island, and third is when Gon woke up in the hospital.

This is the fourth. And Gon is not quite sure why.

 

 

~

Gon leans back on a pile of fallen leaves, it crunches under his weight. The sun is almost setting and he's still miles away from anywhere.

He rummages around his pocket for a small black notebook—pages yellowed and the spine frayed—he's had it since he lost his nen. Mito gave it to him, _I write when I'm worried,_ she tells him. 

Gon didn't touch it for the longest time, just at the bottom of his bag, collecting dust and dirt; until one night, in a ship to YorkNew, he suddenly had the urge to write something. 

He started writing places he's been to—places he's been to but didn't find what he was looking for.

With check marks and x-es and notes of _not here, tickets are sold out, the ship leaves on the 23rd._

Gon scrunches his nose. 

The notebook had a total of 147 places. Countries, cities, small towns, forests, temples, and even islands. And 147 places later, Gon still hasn't found Killua.

"Do you not want me to find you?" He says to the wind, the sea, the setting sun.

And just like Killua, they don't answer back.

 

~ 

The bulky device sat comfortably on Gon's palm as he stares at its blank screen. Outdated, old, and inconvenient. But some things, he just couldn't throw away. 

The cushion shifts as Kite sits beside him, red hair translucent in the sunlight.

"You rarely visit." Kite says. 

"Yeah, sorry." Gon smiles apologetically. Last time he did, tears dried at his cheeks in a mess of an apology. 

"Killua, huh?" Kite says. Gon clenches his jaw before nodding. Kite breathes out, looking at the coffee table where Gon's belongings lay. A bag, a small notebook, and a hunter license.

"Kite," Gon begins, Kite hums in reply. "How did you find Ging?" 

Kite regards him, eyes darting from Gon's face to the black notebook on the coffee table. Kite reaches for it, flipping through the pages before setting it on Gon's lap.

"You don't find places Gon." He places a hand on Gon's shoulder.

"You find the person."

 

~

Gon sets foot in the pier, spirits down and heart empty. Kite shook his head when Gon asked if he could stay and train with him.

_Go home, Gon._ He doesn't really know where that is anymore. Whale Island will always be home, but right now, it wasn't the kind Gon is looking for. _You don't want to be here, you want to be out there. So that's what you do._

He shows his ticket to the person by the dock, the person regards him with a gruff and a nod. 

A man going off the boat hits Gon's shoulders, causing him to turn around.

Gon didn't really want to argue, he didn't really have the energy. That is, until he sees a familiar figure he hasn't seen in five years, and suddenly Gon is on fire.

He probably stood there for a while, earning curses from sailors getting off the boat for blocking the exit.

Gon couldn't find it in him to move his rooted feet. His head felt like it's floating on molten lava and his hands starts to shake. He doesn't move, Instead, he whispers in broken sequence, a name.

"A—Alluka?" Alluka doesn't hear it, of course. She's sitting by a bench outside the pier, holding what seems to be a map. But she was alone.

"Oy, you okay?" A man asks Gon, Gon looks at him with heavy eyes before managing a nod.

"Y-yeah." Gon utters before jerking his feet and starts running to the direction of the bench.

"Alluka!" He shouts, Alluka is still a distance away, but she hears it. Her blue eyes—so much like Killua's—widen in shock and she's dropping the map she held and she's running to Gon's direction as if he was a long lost friend.

"Gon?!" She shouts back, once their distance is almost nothing, her shock turns to surprise, mouth curving into an excited smile. "It's been so long!" 

"Y-yeah. It has—" Gon had a million things to say. 

 

_How are you?_

_Where have you been?_

_You guys never called._

_Killua never answered my calls._

_Killua doesn't leave me messages anymore._

_Where is he?_

_Is he with you?_

 

"K-Killua?" Is all he manages to say, because if he said more, the tears teetering at the edge of his eyes would fall. Alluka's bright blue eyes start to close, her smile falling like waterfall.

"I'm sorry, Gon. Brother's not with me anymore." And before the world could crash down before him, Alluka is tugging him by the sleeve and pointing at the bench.

They talk a while.

Killua has been travelling alone for a couple of years now. Alluka has been with Palm, training herself and even studying for school. Killua visits them every month, staying for a day or two and sometimes a week. 

"But why?" Gon asks her. 

Alluka doesn't look at him when she answers.

"You're never going to know what you really want if you keep doing it for others, and not for yourself. Brother never wanted to leave my side, so I left his." Alluka huffs a laugh. "He's always like that. He thinks what he wants to do is to take care of me. But that's just because he loves me." The wind picked up. "Brother probably thought he's doing himself a favor when you two parted ways."

Gon doesn't answer, he just looks at the sea, red and blinding with the setting sun.

"I guess he just doesn't want to lose you again."

 

~

Another year passes after his encounter with Alluka. Still, Gon never heard anything from Killua, even anything _about_ Killua. 

So he stops trying to find him.

He stops listing down places, he stops booking tickets, he just...stops.

Gon still remembers it. Sunny, even if a rain just fell. Leaves of the tree he sat under still dropped collected rain. Gon flipped through pages and pages of places he's been. And he sighs. 

He grabs the pencil tucked inside the spine of the notebook and writes one last thing on the list.

_Killua_

Gon closed the notebook, and never opened it again.

 

~

 

Another year passes.

And then another.

And another.

Until Gon is almost twenty, his youth withering like Killua's memory.

Killua's face, Killua's voice, Killua's eyes.

 

Killua's smile.

 

Leorio always told him, just because you're twenty doesn't mean you're not young anymore. 

Gon laughed at that. He felt old, he felt tired. 

He felt lost.

Gon liked to think he doesn't know the reason for his misery. But he knew it too well.

Apologies still tucked under his tongue, five years old and still very, very sorry.

Gratitude hidden behind his eyes, five years too late and still very, very thankful.

 

And a certain person that came in white locks of starlight hair and moon shine eyes. With a laughter that defined bliss, and sounded a lot like his favorite song.

With hands so warm it reminded him of home.

"I'd wait, you know." He whispers, through the sky blanketed in black and speckled with stars. "I won't find you, but I'll...wait." 

"I will."

 

~

Another year.

Gon's waiting under the shed of a tree, dried and dead leaves getting crunched under his weight as he waits for a bus. 

Perfectly normal day, until his old phone starts ringing a number he doesn't recognize.

He stares at it, and his hands start to tremble. Something about it made him nervous. Something about someone calling his old phone, which no one did anymore. Because he had a new one, and told everyone about it. Except...

He hovers his finger on the green button, pressing at the last second before the call goes to voicemail.

Silence. 

Silence.

" _Gon."_ And five years feels like _nothing._ He is fourteen again. Because Killua's voice is still the same and Gon is still missing him so much, much more than the first night he woke up without him. And he doesn't know what to say, so he just doesn't think anymore. Gon found out a long time ago that it's futile to think so much around Killua. The key was to just let it be. He is fourteen again, restless and spirits high. He is fourteen again, at loss for words.

Gon runs. He's circling around and straining his head to find where Killua could be. "Where are you?" Something about Killua's voice said he was near.

_"Stay where you are, idiot."_ Ah, so Killua did see him. After five years of trying to find Killua, Killua is still the one who finds him. 

"But."

_"I'm coming to you._ " And that's all it takes to stop Gon from running around and shouting Killua's name.

The three minutes of waiting felt too long and too fast. When Killua appears out of the corner of the park across Gon, he forgets he needs to breathe.

Killua is still Killua. A little taller maybe, hair a little longer, but still. Gon is fourteen again, because whatever it was he felt for Killua back then, is still thrumming loudly and repeatedly in his chest.

"Guess you never changed your number." Killua chuckles like he's just gone for a few days. Like he's not called or messaged or shown himself for five years. 

_And you still wear the same kind of clothes. And you still wear that smirk with pride. And you still close your eyes when you laugh._ Gon thinks.

"N—no. But...you did." Gon whispers, eyes still wide in surprise and disbelief.

"Yeah. I had to. Lots of reasons, sorry." Gon wanted to chide it on him. _Why couldn't you tell me? Why not leave me a message? Why not atleast tell me you're going to so I don't have to stare at my phone regularly hoping you'd drop a message or call?_

"Oh." He whispers, hoping Killua hears how hurt he is. And Killua probably did, because he leans closer to Gon, placing a hand on his shoulder.

"It's been a while, Gon." Killua smiles, and it's not quite the one you make when you're happy, because Gon remembers Killua wearing it when he said, _We'll always be friends._

//

Really, Gon imagined their meeting a lot, but it really didn't include a bench by the sea, with nothing but the ocean waves to hear whatever they had to say. No one was around either. It's either too perfect or too wrong.

"How have you been?" Killua asks, finally. He leans on his knees.

Gon doesn't answer. Instead he gives Killua the notebook.

Killua looks at him before gingerly taking it from his hands.

He doesn't ask why, but instead flips through pages, and pages of places. 

Gon doesn't look, he stares ahead, the gentle waves and the reflected moon.

"Gon..." Killua chokes out, finally finding his voice.

Gon sighs. "Yeah." 

"I never asked you to find me." Killua whispers. Gon closes his eyes, a smile—barely there—creases his eyes.

"When have I ever done things I didn't want to, Killua?" He sighs, again, trying to not let all the bottled up emotions ruin the fragility of the moment. "I've always been selfish. You know that." 

"Gon—"

"Killua, I still am. That's why I've been trying to find you for so long. Because I'm selfish. What would I have done when I found you? Begged you to come with me? I didn't think that far." Gon brushes his hand through his hair. "I just know that...I wanted to see Killua again. That's all."

Killua turns the notebook over, putting his palm on its spine, feeling the rough cloth on his fingertips. 

They let the moment rest, seagulls landing on their feet to peck on crumbs scattered around them.

"You know," Killua says. "Ever since Alluka decided to be alone, I've been thinking about you." _A lot more than usual,_ he doesn't say. Gon regards him with a stare. "And I thought about traveling with you again. It sounded nice." He sighs. "But, I realized you're _Gon_  and you need adventures, and faraway places with magic and trouble and," Killua opens the notebook. It had little notes written all over it, _done!, this place has good apples, not here, good fishing spot._  "...and I realize that's something you do alone, you know?"

The waves fill the silence for them.

"Killua." Killua turns to face him. "I..." Gon closes his eyes, when he opens them, he is smiling. "I think it's fun to be with you." Gon shifts, putting his hand on the space between them. "Do you have fun when we're together?" 

Killua stares at him. "You idiot..." Gon doesn't falter. "Yeah, yeah. I d...do." 

"Then let's stick together." Gon's smile is wider, he knew the words by heart. "We can see the world, and travel together." Gon reaches for his hand. "Once again."

Killua looks at the little notebook again, before turning it on the last page. 

A page with nothing but his name. 

"Okay."

That night, Gon crossed out the last thing on his list.

 

~

 "You can't find someone who doesn't want to be found. Sometimes, you have to let them find you." Bisky replies.

 


End file.
